International Business Commons^™

Energy Market And Carbon Emission Spillovers In Critical Minerals Investment: A Dynamic Connectedness Approach, Haibo Wang, Lutfu S. Sua, Jaime Ortiz, Jun Huang, Bahram Alidaee

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the daily financial risk spillovers associated with investing in critical minerals. It examines the dynamic interconnectedness between seven critical mineral Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) portfolios and key economic-wide variables, including the energy market, carbon emissions, market sentiment and global infrastructure.

Design/methodology/approach: A time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model is used to quantify dynamic connectedness and directional volatility spillovers using daily data from May 1 2013, to May 2 2023. The study isolates the impact of extreme events by splitting the data into pre- and post-COVID-19 samples based on the February 2020 stock market crash.

Findings: …

Nutrition Labeling And Food Choice Behavior In A Cross-Border Context: Evidence From The Rio Grande Valley, Edith Galy

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Unhealthy dietary habits have been linked to chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. As a result, governments have implemented nutritional labeling policies intended to assist consumers in making informed food choices. While the United States relies primarily on Nutrition Facts panels, Mexico recently adopted a front-of-package warning label system that uses highly visible warning symbols. This study examines how nutritional labels influence food choices among university students in the Rio Grande Valley, a unique border region where consumers are exposed to both U.S. and Mexican food-labeling systems. Data was collected through an online Qualtrics survey administered to …

Collaborative Ecosystems And Sustainability Transitions: Evidence From Stina Inc. And The Tube Recycling Project, Edith Galy

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Many sustainability challenges faced by firms are systemic and cannot be addressed by individual organizations acting alone. Packaging recyclability is one such challenge, as it depends on coordinated product design, downstream infrastructure acceptance, and stakeholder trust across an entire value chain. This study examines how a collaborative ecosystem enables progress toward recyclable plastic squeeze tubes through the action of a neutral intermediary. Drawing on an in depth qualitative case study of the Tube Recycling Project coordinated by Stina Inc., the analysis integrates interview data with project documentation to examine how firms collaborated across competitive boundaries. The findings show that sustainability …

Community-Driven Esg Governance And Climate-Resilient Livelihoods In Ghana: Evidence From Participatory Action Research, Esi A. Elliot, Nana Opare-Djan, Mustapha Iddrisu

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Illegal artisanal and small-scale mining (galamsey) and climate stress jointly degrade ecosystems and livelihoods in Ghana. This paper demonstrates how community-driven governance can realign incentives toward environmental stewardship and inclusive livelihoods. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design—quantitative difference-in-differences followed by qualitative case analysis and Participatory Action Research—we evaluate a structured program combining vocational training, financial literacy, environmental stewardship, and governance alignment. We operationalize Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) outcomes via transparent composite indices and triangulate survey, administrative, and focus group evidence. The study identifies conditions under which alternative livelihoods reduce participation in illegal mining, strengthen women’s economic agency, and improve …

Empowering Change From The Ground Up: Women’S Entrepreneurship In Sub-Saharan Africa’S Informal Sector, Rita Abban, Esi A. Elliot

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Women’s entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a critical driver of socio-economic development, within the informal sector where women enterprises are concentrated. Despite substantial contributions, structural and institutional barriers impede the formalization of these businesses, curbing their economic impact. This study examines how women entrepreneurs in Ghana and SSA navigate informal practices to achieve economic mobility. Employing a systematic literature review - PRISMA framework, the research synthesizes key themes including entrepreneurial capacity, sustainability, intellectual property, and institutional support. A comparative lens incorporating Rwanda and South Africa reveals Ghana’s high rate of female entrepreneurship, predominance of informal trade, and socio-cultural dynamics …

A Firm’S Operational Risk: Data Set And Empirical Evidence, Vivek Astvansh, Joseph J. Simpson

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Problem definition: A firm’s stakeholders would benefit from a quantitative measure of the managerial disclosure of its operational risk and the implications of this disclosure. However, a quantitative and scalable measure of a firm’s disclosed operational risk is unavailable. Thus, the firm’s stakeholders remain unaware of its disclosed operational risk and the risk’s implications. Methodology/results: U.S. law requires a public firm to textually disclose its operational and nonoperational risks in Item 1A of its annual report (i.e., Form 10-K). We train 64 transformer models on U.S. public firms’ Item 1A text to score 131,920 firm-years (16,959 firms, 2005 to 2024) …

Making Words Count: Computational Linguistics In Management Research, Joseph J. Simpson, Richard A. Hunt, David M. Townsend, Judy Rady, Elham Asgari, Mohammad Rady, Daniel J. Beal

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

In recent years, a rapidly growing number of management scholars are using computational linguistics (CL) to analyze vast corpora of naturally occurring organizational language. Yet the rapid adoption of CL methods has outpaced the development of shared standards for linking theoretical constructs, linguistic data, and computational measurement. We synthesize 353 articles published in leading management journals for 2013–2025, identifying four recurring challenges shaping the credibility of CL-based research: misalignment between constructs and textual corpora, unnecessary model complexity, the opacity of large language model workflows, and insufficient transparency in reporting. Building on these patterns, we develop four integrative design principles—construct-language fit, …

Cross Level Effects Of Digitalization And Environment Management On Energy Savings In Chinese Manufacturing Firms, Zijin Wang, Jaime Ortiz, Yuanheng Li, Lingyan Shi

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The pathway to energy savings requires coordination of technological progress and policy implementation. Specific factors are needed to bridge cross-disciplinary conversations within just one system. Regional public digital infrastructure and enterprises’ environmental management capabilities are incorporated into a research framework on digitalization and energy savings based on the theory of digital ecosystems. A cross-level moderating model is constructed using data from 2014 to 2022 for 650 Chinese enterprises listed in the manufacturing industry to examine the impact of various digital technologies on energy savings, moderating effect of digital infrastructure and the constraint effect of environmental management systems (EMSs). Artificial intelligence …

The Use (And Misuse) Of Tariffs In North America: A New Trade War?, Maroula Khraiche, Armando R. Lopez-Velasco, Jean-Baptiste Tondji

School of Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

Trade wars may have started. At the time this report was published, the Trump administration had threatened, then paused, a 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods. Before the pause, Mexico and Canada were preparing retaliatory tariffs. After the pause, Trump ordered a 25 percent import tax on all steel and aluminum entering the United States to start in March 2025 and announced a plan for tariffs on US trading partners. In this brief, we document the different perspectives and economic consequences of North American trade wars and beyond.

China’S Readiness For Transitioning To A Low-Carbon Economy: Mitigant And Catalyst Factors For A Geopolitical Conflict, Yan Chen, Jiayi Lyu, Jaime Ortiz, Wenbin Song

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The transition from a carbon-intensive economy to a carbon-neutral one has become a critical global objective to address climate change. This study examines the relationship between Low-Carbon Economic Development (LCED) and Geopolitical Risk (GPR) in China by focusing on the challenges and opportunities they present. We use a qualitative analysis to identify that rising GPR, exacerbated by market instability, resource allocation conflicts, and trade disputes, significantly hinders LCED progress. However, these geopolitical tensions also act as a catalyst for accelerating the development of renewable energy, reducing reliance on traditional energy sources, and fostering low-carbon technologies. Furthermore, LCED can ameliorate GPR …

Digital Battlegrounds: The Power Dynamics And Governance Of Contemporary Platforms, Richard A. Hunt, David M. Townsend, Joseph J. Simpson, Robert Nugent, Maximilian Stallkamp, Esin Bozdag

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The ubiquity of digital platforms is undeniable, as is their transactional efficiency and world-flattening possibilities. Yet, these platforms are contested battlegrounds where stakeholder power struggles reflect and influence broader societal turbulence. In the emerging era, alongside the blinding speed and global reach of the gig economy are looming specters of rentier capitalism, digiserfdom, misinformation, data exploitation, digital addiction, and near-ungovernable algorithmic agents. To date, scholarly focus on digital platforms has been on their transactional features and impacts, dimensionalizing governance mechanisms as emanating from old economy conceptions of bottom-up or top-down checks and balances, or incentives and efficiencies. These emphases, while …

Sustainable Value Co-Creation Between Financial Services Firms And Microenterprise Customers: Is Digital The Missing Link?, Carmina Cavazos, Esi A. Elliot, Rita Abban

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This paper investigates how financial services providers (FSPs) can engage in value cocreation with their microenterprise customers (CMEs) for sustainable value cocreation. The potential of digital for value cocreation in inter-firm relationships is relevant because digital technologies such as mobile phone and internet platforms are rapidly transforming the business landscape. The research question addressed is how do financial services firms and microenterprises engage in sustainable value co-creation? It is a qualitative study (using phenomenological interviews and observations) of financial service providers (FSPs) and their microenterprise customers (CMEs) in Ghana. The study builds on the model of Selander et al., (2010) …

Resilience And Small Business Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Krittaya Sangboon, Leon Schjoedt

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

When small business owners encounter vicissitudes, does their resilience help them bounce back quickly to survive and be successful? Is their resilience more pronounced when they perceive the environment to be hostile? Answering this question is the purpose of this study. Using data from 105 small business owners in multiple industries, the results show that small business owners’ resilience and small business performance are positively associated, and that when they perceive the environment to be hostile, the effect of resilience is stronger. While validating findings in the extant literature, this study enhances the veracity of past findings by examining small …

Recognising Ecological Reflexivity: An Alternative Approach To Partnership Capabilities For Collaborative Governance, Joanna Stanberry, David F. Murphy, Janis Bragan Balda

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Ecological reflexivity provides a key lever for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but is underexplored in one prominent context: collaborative governance particularly associated with SDG 17. Using an exploratory study and novel approach to Q methodology, we investigate capabilities needed for advancing collaborative governance and cross-sector partnering through an exploratory study. Rather than treating these capacities as universal standards or aims for collaboration between varied stakeholders, they were offered as options that actors may value and choose to advance (or not). Local sustainability-focused actors in North West England sorted capabilities as statements, which discursively reframe multi-stakeholder partnership …

Entrepreneurship As Collective Action: The Next Frontier, Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh, Claire Champenois, Thomas M. Cooney, Leon Schjoedt

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Analyses of collective action in entrepreneurship are lacking in the extant literature. Despite entrepreneurship research progressively moving away from a focus on the lone heroic entrepreneur, scholars have yet to absorb the full potential of entrepreneurship as collective action. Also missing is a collective stance on key entrepreneurship concepts such as opportunity discovery or construction and entrepreneurial agency. Accordingly, this article reviews and critiques five articles that constitute this Special Issue seeking to establish ‘entrepreneurship as collective action’ as the next frontier of entrepreneurship theory development. The articles in this Special Issue each investigate a specific instance of collective action …

Assessing The Effect Of The Magnitude Of Spillovers On Global Supply Chains Using Quantile Vector Autoregressive And Wavelet Approaches, Haibo Wang, Lutfu Sagbansua, Jaime Ortiz

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Overwhelmed by the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chains are being restructured and improved worldwide. It then becomes essential to accurately assess their vulnerabilities to external shocks and understand the relationships between key influential factors to obtain the desired results. This study provides a new conceptual econometric framework to examine the relationships between the purchasing managers’ index, service purchasing managers’ index, world equity index, unemployment rate, food and beverage historical prices, Baltic Dry Index, West Texas Intermediate Index, and carbon emissions. A quantile vector autoregressive (QVAR) model is used to assess the dynamic connectedness among Brazil, Russia, …

An Interdisciplinary Approach To Experiential Learning In Cyberbiosecurity And Agriculture Through Workforce Development, Kellie Johnson, Tiffany Drape, Joseph Oakes, Joseph J. Simpson, Anne Brown, Donna M. Westfall-Rudd, Susan Duncan

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Cyberbiosecurity and workforce development in agriculture and the life sciences (ALS) is a growing area of need in the curriculum in higher education. Students that pursue majors related to ALS often do not include training in cyber-related concepts or expose the ‘hidden curriculum’ of seeking internships and jobs. Exposing students through workforce development training and hands-on engagement with industry professionals can provide learning opportunities to bridge the two and is an area of growth and demand as the workforce evolves. The objectives of this work were 1) to learn key concepts in cybersecurity, including data security, visualization, and analysis, to …

The Provenances And Postscripts Of 1989, Jokubas Salyga

Political Science Faculty Publications

The books under review exemplify some of the finest recent work on the historically informed political economy of Central and Eastern Europe. While different in their conceptual frameworks and geographical foci, the titles converge in the advancement of nuanced and convincing arguments, displaying both theoretical acuity and empirical depth to great effect. Bartel, Fabry, and Pula all share a resolute dedication to illuminating the under-explored provenances of neoliberalism and/or globalization in the region, that predate the annus mirabilis of 1989. Their contributions situate the ‘Eastern bloc’ states within the contours of evolving global political economy and the existential crises engulfing …

How Does Digital Technology Innovation Affect The Internationalization Performance Of Chinese Enterprises? The Moderating Effect Of Sustainability Readiness, Fei Li, Yang Zhao, Jaime Ortiz, Yan Chen

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The existing literature highlights the role of digital technology innovation in driving the international performance of enterprises. However, it has largely overlooked the nonlinear relationships that emerge from their quest for contributing towards global sustainable development goals. Our study explores the nonlinear influence of digital technology innovation on firms’ international performance, further investigating how this relationship may be moderated by sustainability readiness, as measured through sustainable technological capabilities and sustainable certification standards. Using a double fixed effects model on a sample of 269 Chinese listed digital enterprises from 2012 to 2019, our findings reveal a U-shaped relationship between digital technology …

Customer Value Co-Creation: Environmental Sustainability As A Tourist Experience, Esi A. Elliot, Russell P. Adams, Ernest Kafui Kwasi Tsetse

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Increasingly, environmental sustainability has become an important consideration for customer value co-creation, which is collaboration between a firm-provider and its customers to jointly create value. Our research question is therefore “how does customer value co-creation (CVC) enhance environmental sustainability?” We argue that attention to CVC globally would significantly enhance environmental sustainability in emerging markets. The findings of the study revealed that firms that do not enhance customer engagement and their environmental sustainability will lose patronage. Secondly, the attitude of most of these tourists who continually visit unclean tourism destinations such as littered beaches and polluted water bodies would continue to …

A Conceptual Review Of Sustainable Development Goal 17: Picturing Politics, Proximity And Progress, Joanna Stanberry, Janis Bragan Balda

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

We outline the discursive origins of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17, describing its ambiguous marching orders, which are further confused by shifting and contested stakeholder approaches. The widespread effect is to obscure the primary aim of making the tropics and other vulnerable countries more resilient, and also globally overcoming barriers to their development. We argue that ecological reflexivity, as developed and advanced by deliberative democracy and the Earth System Governance Project, belongs at the apex of those capacities needed for implementing the Agenda for Transformation. Ecological reflexivity conceptually grounds inclusive, open, critical, and consequential engagement of discourses situated …

The Pathway To The Natural Gas Industry: Financial Development, Coal Consumption, And Carbon Dioxide Emissions In P.R. China, Teng Tong, Jaime Ortiz, Haibo Wang

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This paper revisits the causal links between financial development, coal consumption, and CO2 emissions in P.R. China over the 1977–2017 period to validate the development of its natural gas industry. It uses a Bootstrap ARDL bound test with structural breaks to establish stationarity, short- and long-run dynamics, and causality of the series. The results show there are no long-run relationships among these three variables, but a Granger causality test does indicate the presence of both a two-way Granger causality between coal consumption and CO2 emissions, and a one-way Granger causality running from financial development to both coal consumption and CO2 …

A Sustainable Digital Ecosystem: Digital Servitization Transformation And Digital Infrastructure Support, Yan Chen, Zijin Wang, Jaime Ortiz

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

While the notion of digitalization and sustainability has become prominent in current research, more can be done to bridge these two concepts and explain the interaction between them. Plenty of literature has focused on the impact of digital technology applications and business model innovations on environmental performance but has not considered the counterforce of environmental performance on digitalization. We investigated this question from the perspective of digital ecosystem architects to explore more organic relationships. By analyzing data from 1083 listed firms from 2014 to 2019, we found various effective paths for architects to participate in the digital ecosystem and determined …

Exploring Mexican Attitudes Toward The Front Labeling System For Food And Beverages: A Twitter Analysis, Monica D. Hernandez, Edith Galy

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Recently, the Mexican government implemented a simple labeling system that would apply to 85% of the food products. The aim of the system is to report high amounts of calories, sugars, sodium, fats and trans fats. Labels are displayed on the front of the package individually or in groups. No studies have been conducted to analyze public attitudes toward the labeling system. In order to fill this gap, the purpose of the study is to conduct an exploratory analysis of the Mexican attitudes toward the new labeling system on Twitter. The Twitter API was used to collect tweets published between …

Digital Financial Services And Strategic Financial Management: Financial Services Firms And Microenterprises In African Markets, Esi A. Elliot, Carmina Cavazos, Benjamin Ngugi

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This study highlights the impact of digital financial services as enhancing the capacity of development goals as well as social sustainability. The selected emerging markets are Ghanaian financial service providers (FSP)s and microenterprise customers (CME)s, where we examine how “Ubuntu”, an African philosophy of humanism, legitimizes spaces for a more democratic, egalitarian, and ethical engagement of human beings. This study adopts a grounded theory methodology for investigation of the phenomena with a sample size of 70 relationship managers. The findings further existing sustainability literature pertaining to social sustainability and consumer wellbeing. We contribute to theory by presenting a psychological perspective …

How Do Digital Lives Affect Resident Mental Health In The Digital Era? Empirical Evidence Based On Chinese General Social Survey, Yan Chen, Mengyang Wei, Jaime Ortiz

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Having good mental health means we are better able to connect, function, cope and thrive. The widespread application of digital technology in daily life provides new ways and promising tools for residents to maintain their mental health. Given the importance of mental health for everyone, and the fact that mental health problems are prevalent worldwide, this study discusses how digital lives affects the mental health of residents. The results suggest that digital lives are significantly and positively associated with mental health. Mechanisms analysis identifies personal perceptions (self-rated physical exercise and subjective wellbeing) as the important paths for digital lives to …

Economic Uncertainty And Bank Risk: The Moderating Role Of Risk Governance, Xing Zhang, Fengchao Li, Yingying Xu, Jaime Ortiz

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Uncertainty is an economically important risk factor in the banking sector. Using a sample of Chinese listed commercial banks over the period 2005 − 2018, this research conducted pooled OLS and found evidence that economic uncertainty significantly increases bank risk and lowers profitability. Furthermore, we constructed a partial equilibrium model to explain how risk governance alters the risk-increasing effect and profit-decreasing effect of economic uncertainty on bank risk and profitability. Consistent with theory, empirical results suggested the effects of economic uncertainty on bank risk and performance tend to be considerably weaker when there exists a strong risk governance mechanism. These …

Constructing An Intelligent Model Based On Support Vector Regression To Simulate The Solubility Of Drugs In Polymeric Media, Sait Senceroglu, Mohamed Arselene Ayari, Tahereh Rezaei, Fardad Faress, Amith Khandakar, Muhammad E. H. Chowdhury, Zanko Hassan Jawhar

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This study constructs a machine learning method to simultaneously analyze the thermodynamic behavior of many polymer–drug systems. The solubility temperature of Acetaminophen, Celecoxib, Chloramphenicol, D-Mannitol, Felodipine, Ibuprofen, Ibuprofen Sodium, Indomethacin, Itraconazole, Naproxen, Nifedipine, Paracetamol, Sulfadiazine, Sulfadimidine, Sulfamerazine, and Sulfathiazole in 1,3-bis[2-pyrrolidone-1-yl] butane, Polyvinyl Acetate, Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), PVP K12, PVP K15, PVP K17, PVP K25, PVP/VA, PVP/VA 335, PVP/VA 535, PVP/VA 635, PVP/VA 735, Soluplus analyzes from a modeling perspective. The least-squares support vector regression (LS-SVR) designs to approximate the solubility temperature of drugs in polymers from polymer and drug types and drug loading in polymers. The structure of this machine …

Introducing A Linear Empirical Correlation For Predicting The Mass Heat Capacity Of Biomaterials, Reza Iranmanesh, Afham Pourahmad, Fardad Faress, Sevil Tutunchian, Mohammad Amin Ariana, Hamed Sadeqi, Saleh Hosseini, Falah Alobaid, Babak Aghel

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This study correlated biomass heat capacity (Cp) with the chemistry (sulfur and ash content), crystallinity index, and temperature of various samples. A five-parameter linear correlation predicted 576 biomass Cp samples from four different origins with the absolute average relative deviation (AARD%) of ~1.1%. The proportional reduction in error (REE) approved that ash and sulfur contents only enlarge the correlation and have little effect on the accuracy. Furthermore, the REE showed that the temperature effect on biomass heat capacity was stronger than on the crystallinity index. Consequently, a new three-parameter correlation utilizing crystallinity index and temperature was developed. This model was …

A Decomposed Data Analysis Approach To Assessing City Sustainable Development Performance: A Network Dea Model With A Slack-Based Measure, Bowen Sun, Haibo Wang, Jaime Ortiz, Jun Huang, Can Zhao, Zelang Wang

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This paper deals with urban sustainable development in China. We propose a network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with a slack-based measure (SBM) to analyze the eco-efficiency of 284 Chinese cities, enabling us to find a way to open the “black box” in conventional DEA models and introduce social well-being factors into the model, and depict the role of local government in providing public service and improving social well-beings. We set up a framework of urban development by dividing the process of into two steps. The first stage is a production system translating inputs and natural resources into GDP and …